Beto O’Rourke Announces He’s Running for President

The former El Paso congressman rose to fame by losing a close race to Ted Cruz in 2018. Now he’s hoping his fundraising ability and retail politicking skills will pay even bigger dividends.

By NTK Staff | 03.14.2019 @10:02am

Former three-term congressman and failed 2018 Senate candidate Beto O’Rourke announced officially Thursday that he is running for president. The announcement ends months of speculation and encouragement from grassroots activists and some party leaders.

O’Rourke released a video explaining his decision to run and vision for the country. The video features O’Rourke, alongside his wife Amy, on a couch and speaking directly to camera:

It’s not yet clear if O’Rourke’s candidacy will upend the established equilibrium of the Democratic primary thus far. Most polling indicates that former Vice President Joe Biden is leading the field both nationally and in most early state polls in Iowa and New Hampshire. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) is a close second in many of those polls, followed distantly by Sens. Kamala Harris (D-CA) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA).

O’Rourke is acutely aware, too, of perhaps his biggest vulnerability—being a white man in a Democratic Party yearning for a woman or a person of color, a Kamala Harris or a Cory Booker. ‘The government at all levels is overly represented by white men … That’s part of the problem, and I’m a white man. So if I were to run, I think it’s just so important that those who would comprise my team looked like this country. If I were to run, if I were to win, that my administration looks like this country. It’s the only way I know to meet that challenge.

The profile also noted that when O’Rourke spoke to President Barack Obama about potentially running, the former president “asked Beto O’Rourke to consider if he had a clear path to the White House. Could he deliver Texas? Michigan? Pennsylvania? Wisconsin?”

No matter how O’Rourke does among Democratic primary voters, one thing is for sure: the media will undoubtedly fawn over his candidacy for months, giving him an added boost that candidates like Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand or Julian Castro will likely never experience.